February 2002

February 28, Blue and Gold Banquet:

The Bleary-Eyed Indian

Three sweet boys

Hubby, Harrison and Carter, waiting for Brennan and Bella's ice skating lesson to be over.

Brennan: Birthday Party

SHOVE IN THAT CAKE BOY

... for his friend Xavier O.

Assorted Pictures From About 2002ish

Cutie boy

Here we have sweet little chubby-cheeked Mr. Bear, participating in a game during Pack Meeting (Brennan was a Cub Scout at the time). Thank goodness for my dear friend Claudia, who had a digital camera long before I did and took such great pictures of all the fun Scout happenings while she had that calling.

Goofy kiddos

What we DID have was one of those little round eyeball-looking cameras that sat on top of our computer monitor. Here's one Brennan and Isabella took of themselves. Brennan figured out pretty early on how to open the pictures he took with "Paint" and then doctor them up to his specifications... that's another set of pictures for another post.

Mr. Baby

Little Carter, being his introspective, serious, hairy self. Look at all that great hair. After the first three babies being completely bald, it was great to have my last two born with hair. They didn't lose a strand of it, either. My friend Claudia always called Carter "Mr. Baby" because he looked so serious all the time. I love him in this little dress shirt.

Me!

Of course, no set of pictures is complete without one of me looking completely dorky. Here I am, trying out the eyeball camera.

Goofy Eyeball Camera Pictures

Brennan doctored up a bunch of pictures. Here are some of my favorites.

Here we've widened our eyes slightly, added a highly useful third eyeball on our forehead, and (for no particular reason that I can see) slapped on a huge Bugs Bunny-ish tooth. I started a blog written by a fictional character, "Hugh Jybahl," and used this for his profile picture.

This one isn't that funny but it does bring back funny memories of the time we had a family picture taken in Logan with Grandma and Pa and Kristy. The guy took picture after picture of us, and one of the shots was great of everyone else, but Hubby's eyes were closed. For the finished product, someone had actually taken paint and a paintbrush, and PAINTED HIS EYES OPEN. It's so creepy-looking (kind of like this picture).

Here we've given Grannie the huge-fried-egg-eyes-and-long-lizard-tongue treatment... it was actually a pretty cute picture of her before Brennan got to it...

The lizard tongue is a popular feature, probably because it's so easy to draw. Here's Harrison.

I don't think this one needs any explanation.

Brennan: Pinewood Derby!

Brennan, Ammon Te..., Richard Fa...

Carter (one month old) and me; Carter looks ready for action

Brennan at Den Meeting

Painting the teepee

Gran's funeral

Since Gran was a veteran, he was eligible for burial in Portland's Willamette National Cemetery, and since my little family lives so close to Portland, we had his funeral at our stake center. It was kind of odd, asking my bishop to "throw" a funeral for my grandfather, whom he'd never met, but it went off wonderfully.

People came from all around the West to pay their respects, including from Redmond, OR, where Neenaw and Gran had lived, and Sisters, OR, where they had served an at-home mission. During the eulogies, I heard some great stories I'd never heard before, like Gran once building someone a new stick shift for their car out of a broom handle. And it worked, of course.

We sang "Abide With Me; Tis Eventide" for the closing hymn. He once heard me playing an arrangement of it on the piano and told me it was his favorite hymn.

New baby Carter was a sweet addition to our group. Uncle John joked that in Heaven, Gran and Carter must have "passed each other in the hall."

After dinner at the church, put on by our ward Relief Society sisters, we traveled to the cemetery and had a short military graveside service.

It was a hard, but beautiful day, very tender, sweet, funny, sad, and joyous. I can't wait to see Gran again.

Christmas 2001

New mixer AND new baby!  SCORE

This was a happy and sad Christmas. We came home with Carter on Christmas Eve, but on Christmas Day, we heard from Grandpa Smith that his father Gran had passed away earlier that morning.

William Ricketts Smith

1918-2001

Love and miss you always

Willamette National Cemetery

Carter's Birth

Carter was our fourth C-section birth. That morning we drove to the hospital, locked our keys in the car, and had to call AAA to rescue us (Mom had her card with her, thank goodness). The birth went well and everything was perfect. Here's our cute new boy:

Grannie took these pictures about twenty minutes after his birth.

What a good, easy baby he was, so happy to be snuggled. I was excited to have him and loved holding him, and the nurses kept making comments about how often I held him. They must have known he was my fourth child and maybe they thought that by now, a mom would be more casual about a new baby. One of the doctors came to see me my second or third day there and said, "I hear you're loving the hell out of that baby!" - which was nice, but weird.

The other memory I have of his birth is how beautiful it was outside, and the nice view I had from my hospital room of the courtyard, where hospital staff had placed white wicker light-up reindeer for Christmas. It snowed while we were there, and it was so pretty, kind of magical. They gave Carter a little red and white Santa cap.

For most of my pregnancy, we thought really hard about naming Carter "Gordon," after President Hinckley (and Barenaked Ladies' debut CD - we were diehard fans of BNL at the time) - but we just couldn't pull the trigger on that one. Hubby was a big fan of the TV show "ER" and we knew another Carter who was Brennan's age, and thought it was a manly-sounding name, a surname like his brothers' names. Robert is Hubby's dad's name and Hubby's middle name.

Carter and Isabella have the most "overused" names in the family. There weren't many Isabellas around when she was born, but there are now, and for a long time, whenever we went anywhere, we'd hear another set of parents calling another boy "Carter." The good news is they're the kids most likely to find personalized license plates with their names on them.

December Pack Meeting

S is for the serious look on my face

Veteran's Day Parade 2001

Our cute Brennan boy with his homies.

With Carson T behind him.

CHEEEEESE

Harrison

Having some Capri Sun in summer...

... and close to Halloween, enjoying that football (which he probably later took a bite of)

Cub Scout Day Camp, Part 2

In the parachute

Hammering rocks

Cub Scout Day Camp, Part 1

Had a good time going with my cute Brennan to day camp. I'm doing the "frumpy pregnant mom, who cares, I'm at Day Camp" look here. 

Carter is in utero

Me, Dallen P, Brennan, ?, Xavier O, Tyler C, Carson T, Brady A.

Raingutter Regatta

Use those lungs, kid!

Brennan's Pack Meeting

Receiving his monthly set of badges from Alison H.

Christmas in the Couve

In our first house here for Christmas - me, Brennan (8), Harrison (19 months), Kristy and Bella (4).

Thanksgiving 2000

For Thanksgiving, we went to Utah and had Thanksgiving dinner at Hubby's Aunt Bev's house. The family dog had puppies and Brennan and Bella had THE most fun playing with them. That was a fun time.

Brennan in Little League

In 2000, when Brennan was 8, he played Little League T-ball. This and soccer are the only organized sports he's played - he also liked football for a while in 8th grade. It's fun having these rare sporty pictures of him.

Here he is - outstanding in his field.

Swinging...

"Run, little man!"

This was the last time Harrison had any amount of fat on his body... love those little pudgy dimples.

Later that summer, we went to Fuddrucker's restaurant and Harrison crawled over to the fireplace and burned his little hand. I knew he burned it, but I didn't know how bad it was until a couple days later when I noticed he had something weird going on with his hand. I opened up his fingers and he had a HUGE blister, all over the palm of his hand. Poor little guy! I wrapped it in gauze and tape, and then wondered how I would keep him from trying to take it off. I decided to play on his vanity, and I told him, "Oh, Harr Bear! Pretty 'hanny!'" a few times, showing him his new bandage. He looked back and forth at his hand and at me, grinned, and never touched it once.